Readin’ and Writin’

Any writer worth their salt will tell you that reading is an important part of the creative process for a writer. In fact, one of the first pieces of advice many established writers will give a budding author is to read, read, read.

I tend to read books in genres other than what I’m writing in. For instance, while working on the Moonstone Chronicles I tend to shy away from reading swords and sorcery or fantasy based adventures. If I was working on the Ardraci Elementals I’d shy away from science fiction.

I read my Kindle while using the exercise bike (so I think of it as reading time, not exercise time) and I read tree books to relax. While I like books in a series, I loathe serials, but sometimes I get caught up in a specific genre and binge read. For instance, I just finished going through a werewolf phase on the Kindle – I read about six or eight werewolf books in a row (although to be fair, two of them were shapeshifting dogs).

I’d have probably kept going with the werewolves, but that was all I could easily find. Blame Book Bub, I have almost 1800 unread books on my Kindle. Now I’m really into this motorcycle club book I’m reading and I expect I’ll be looking for more of those in the future.

While the Kindle reading is a set, daily thing, the tree book reading is a little more problematic. It’s not always easy to fit into my daily routine, but I’ve been making more of an effort lately. And if reading leads to writing, then it appears to be working.

Check out the side bar people – the edits are done and I’m back to adding new words to Wandering Wizards!

I think I was up to around 69,000 words when I started the edits, and I added about 6,000 worth in new scenes, so I probably deleted about 10,000 worth of fluff. While the time line might be a little shaky, I think on the whole what I’ve got is a stronger story and I can’t wait to see what happens next.


Prompts of the Week

Prompt One - words
Quarrel
Bubble
Tidy
Stay
Shield

Prompt Two – archtype card:
Beggar
Light Attributes: Confronts empowerment at the level of physical survival. Awakens the spiritual authority of humility, compassion, and self-esteem.
Shadow Attributes: Dependence on others to the exclusion of effort.

Remember, you don’t need to use the words from prompt one in order, and you don’t necessarily have to create a character from the archtype card, you can use the attributes in the abstract if you like. Above all, have fun with your words, you never know what you might come up with.